I can honestly
say that I never put much thought into the effort it takes to keep electricity
working, nor was I aware of the dangers faced by the lineman making necessary
repairs. If nothing else, Life on the
Line succeeded in waking me up to the realities about the dangers of a job
like that. Life on the Line serves as
a tribute to the brave men who risk danger each time there is a fallen line or
a repair is needed, but they deserve to be honored with a film that isn’t also
full of contrived melodrama and sub-par filmmaking.

Beyond Redemption is the feature film
directorial debut from longtime stuntman, Bruce Fontaine, which makes sense
considering the only time the film is slightly bearable is during the sequences
of action. The rest of the filmmaking is wholly incompetent, from the
derivative undercover cop narrative to the poor production values. This could
have been a moderately amusing low budget action film, but instead resigns to
being a humorless melodrama with a few fights scenes sprinkled throughout.

At a certain point, with films as
successful as Dirty Dancing, cultural
impact becomes more significant than critical reactions. Dirty Dancing may be far from a masterpiece, but it has had lasting
popularity that can’t be ignored. Despite all of the cheesy lines and contrived
romantic melodrama, this is still a film that is easily quotable and difficult
to switch away from when stumbled across on television late at night. Sometimes
a guilty pleasure is the greatest pleasure of them all.

It may seem like
somewhat of an obvious choice to have Morgan Freeman as the host of the
National Geographic documentary series investigating various faiths and their
belief in God. Playing off of the fact that he was cast as the creator in the
Hollywood comedy, Bruce Almighty,
“The Story of God” follows Freeman on his journey to different countries and a
wide variety of cultures in his examination of the belief in a higher power.
That Freeman actually seems personally invested in the questions being raised
may merely be an indicator of his abilities as an actor, but it does wonders
for the accessibility of the topics.

The concept
behind Nerdland has seen many
different forms over the years. First the idea started as a live-action feature
film, before it was pitched as a television series. Then it was an animated
series, before it morphed once again, into the animated feature that was
finally made. After all of the alterations needed just to get to this finished
product, the story of the production of Nerdland
resembles the same desperation of the characters searching for fame within the
narrative.

Despite an
anarchistic title and the chaotically unprofessional band that the documentary
is about, Gimme Danger ends up a
rather bland film experience. The biggest problem is that this film is far more
interested in Iggy Pop than all of the remaining members of The Stooges
combined, with his interview taking up at least 85 percent of the run time.
There are large sections of the film which simply contain Iggy recounting
stories from his past, which may be of interest to his biggest fans but doesn’t
serve the documentary’s narrative well. Even as we trace the origins of the
influential punk band in a conventionally linear fashion, the film often feels
as distracted as the band during their many drug-fueled years.

I refuse to
watch dubbed foreign films if subtitles are available, but the cinematography
and art direction is so rich in Chan-wook
Park’s The Handmaiden that I found myself
wishing that I understood Korean and Japanese. Torn between reading the text in
order to follow the narrative and the captivating pull of magnificent images, The Handmaiden kept my eyes glued to the
screen for much of the running time, afraid to miss a thing. Park has long been
a filmmaker known for his excesses, and his latest is no exception, though he
has somehow managed to make a film that feels both indulgent and restrained,
often at the same time. The Handmaiden
is overflowing with emotion and passion, but that never gets in the way of some
of the director’s most precise and thoughtful filmmaking in years.